This article analyses the factors that can lead to dysfunctional client-agency relationships and offers practical solutions. View Summary

This article analyses the factors that can lead to dysfunctional client-agency relationships and offers practical solutions. The current landscape is one where remuneration is based on time, there is increasing pressure on procurement and relationships are more fluid with more agencies. To improve the relationship, clients and agencies must assess what they each need to do separately and together. Together this includes being more honest at the outset and agreeing financial and contractual terms before the work commences. Clients must write clearer briefs agreed internally and manage internal stakeholders. Agencies must invest in retention and reward client loyalty and deliver their own area of expertise supremely well.

3

Exploiting the implicit: I believe it's what brands don't say that matters

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Peter Buckley, WPP Atticus Awards, Highly Commended, 2012

This paper proposes a new way of looking at brand communication by broadening the perspective from explicit messages to implicit signals. View Summary

This paper proposes a new way of looking at brand communication by broadening the perspective from explicit messages to implicit signals. Viewing brand communication through the lens of messaging can result in brands missing opportunities and, at worst, contradicting themselves with their behaviour. Brands need to consider how they communicate implicitly and ensure that these signals reinforce their values in every way possible.

4

How to assess client-agency relationships effectively

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Jeremy Caplin, Warc Best Practice, February 2012

Analysis of over 8,000 client-agency relationships has shown that agency performance is highly dependent on client performance. View Summary

Analysis of over 8,000 client-agency relationships has shown that agency performance is highly dependent on client performance.

The analysis has also revealed that the best agency performance occurs when that of the client is optimal in four areas: Approval, Briefing, Timing and Behaviour.

When the client's performance is strong in these areas, agency output is judged by clients to be +37% better than it is in agencies with poorly performing clients.

As a result, clients are recommended to first find out their own capabilities and shortcomings.

At a bare minimum, clients need to employ a two-way evaluation process.

Calibrating the data from this evaluation against large externally benchmarked datasets can highlight client strengths and deficiencies.

Regular measurement will allow clients to track their progress against any highlighted actions that need to be taken.

5

Evaluating creative work

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Merry Baskin, Warc Best Practice, December 2010, pp. 38-39

Merry Baskin outlines a process to help avoid making a costly mistake in advertising creative judgement. View Summary

Merry Baskin outlines a process to help avoid making a costly mistake in advertising creative judgement. The term ‘evaluating creative work’ implies clarity, acuity and decisive creative judgement, but all too often it’s a matter of personal preferences. Evaluating creative work is a big ask, and despite attempts by agencies to set out clear formulae and rational criteria for evaluating their creative concepts, all too often it is the client’s ‘hidden’ criteria that dominate the call, and these can be very subjective and hugely variable. You must start by establishing the evaluation criteria upfront. But it’s very hard to tell upfront if a communications idea is going to move people, shift product or raise the bottom line. Ultimately, you must be confident in your opinions.

6

How to write a creative agency brief

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Merry Baskin, Warc Best Practice, June 2010, pp. 36-37

Developing the communications strategy, defining its role in addressing the brand's problem, and transcribing it into a brief for the creative team, is the pivotal stage when the agency starts to add value. View Summary

Developing the communications strategy, defining its role in addressing the brand's problem, and transcribing it into a brief for the creative team, is the pivotal stage when the agency starts to add value. Distilling the communications strategy into a brief is an art; it should be concise, clear, consistent and creative. Briefs should include: the business background and commercial context; an illuminating definition of, or insight into, the target audience; the key proposition or message; recommended media to complement the strategy; relevant brand values and any other relevant background; as well as measurement criteria and methods.

7

Three key steps to briefing creatives

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Nick Southgate, Warc Best Practice, June 2009, Issue 506, pp. 12-13

The article discusses creative management, particularly creative briefing, and how it is changing under pressure. View Summary

The article discusses creative management, particularly creative briefing, and how it is changing under pressure. Traditional creative briefing institutionalises the idea of a division of labour between client and agency in which the client employs the agency because it does not itself have creative talent (a transparent untruth); it follows three parts (described): client brief, creative brief, and briefing meeting. The `division of labour’ is now seen as unhelpful and the underlying assumption is questioned. Increasingly the process is becoming less sequential and more collaborative: planners and creatives work together, rather than account teams and planners passing on problems which the creative team then solves. Such collaboration is more satisfying as well as more effective. Virtual teams in constant touch with the creatives will normally include an agency planner, a media planner, the client and the account team.

8

Spanning silos: a marketing imperative

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David Aaker, Market Leader, Quarter 2, March 2009, pp. 12-16

The article describes a research study which identified at least six problems created or worsened by the silo structure (organisational units with their own management teams). View Summary

The article describes a research study which identified at least six problems created or worsened by the silo structure (organisational units with their own management teams). These included marketing resources being misallocated, silo-spanning brands lacking clarity and linkage, silo-spanning programmes being inhibited, cross-silo offerings being mishandled, management competences being weakened, and success not being leveraged across silos. Many firms are developing the position of corporate Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). But the CMO faces difficulties from silo managers who perceive central control as a threat to them. Silo managers have little incentive to collaborate across silos. The top management support necessary to the CMO is often lacking. Some best practice methods of creating silo synergy are: develop less threatening roles for the CMO, as facilitator, consultant or service provider; reframe central marketing as strategic, driving the business strategy; use cross-silo organisational devices like teams and networks; install a common marketing planning process and information system; and adapt brands to silo contexts while maintaining overall consistency of the brand.

9

Evaluating marketing communications: a guide to best practice

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Les Binet, Market Leader, Issue 29, Summer 2005, pp. 34-38

Correct evaluation of marketing activity is essential to ensure that marketing money is spent wisely and not wasted. View Summary

Correct evaluation of marketing activity is essential to ensure that marketing money is spent wisely and not wasted. It also increasingly affects remuneration. This best practice article offers twenty `golden rules’ for ensuring that evaluation is done properly. The author draws on the IPA databank of more than 1,000 case histories, plus eighteen years of evaluation campaigns for DDB.